Commission -- Joshua Tree Sunset

Just finished my second painting for the year and my first commission in a long time!

(The sun isn't as solid white as it appears in the picture -- my paintings can be hard to photograph!)

Anyway, the painting is 22" x 28" / 55.9cm x 71.1cm -- larger than I've been doing in a long time! Joshua Tree Sunset is a scene in the National Park of that name, one of my favorite places on the planet.

Enjoy!!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

FINALLY!!! I finished my first painting for 2024!!

This is a view a saw many years ago from the Boy Scout Trailhead in Joshua Tree National Park, California. I haven't decided on a title yet, but I'll come up with something. When I do, I'll offer it on my website. The size is 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.

Enjoy! 

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

More (What Else?) Desert Landscape Paintings

Two more desert landscape paintings -- one small, one mini! Both are of Joshua Tree National Park.

JT12                                              5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm

Dawn II                                      8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm

Aries

 As we all know, Aries is a zodiac sign which references a ram. In this case Aries is a desert or peninsular bighorn sheep.

Actually, this is the second time I painted a bighorn and named him Aries, so the painting is entitled Aries II.

In my opinion, bighorn sheep are the majestic animals of the desert -- so noble, so graceful -- and so endangered. The herd populations are slowly increasing in size, but they've got a way to go in areas that break up their habitat with highways, development, humans...stuff like that.

This scene is in Joshua Tree National Park, although I added the rock pinnacle that the bighorn is standing on, and I added the bighorn, too -- this one actually lives at the Living Desert Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Palm Desert, CA. I think I did an OK job of showing the space the way it would look with the bird's eye view, the pinnacle and the sheepie!

Enjoy!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or SouthwestSpaces.com

Aries II                                  18" x 24" / 45.7cm x 61cm

Small Paintings of a Big Desert

 I would call Joshua Tree National Park a big desert!! And a small part of an even bigger desert.

This latest painting shows the Park at the very beginning of sunrise. We were getting sunrises like this every morning for a while, and I'm sure we'll get more when the monsoon season starts up in a month or so.

Anyway, here it is. 5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm. Enjoy!!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Small Joshua Tree Paintings Galore!!

This isn't exactly the newest painting of Joshua Tree National Park, but it IS one I forgot to post here on my blog!!

As before, it's 5" x 7"/12.7cm x 17.8cm and can be framed or, according to my notions, placed on a small mini easel for display. Enjoy!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Another Small Painting of Joshua Tree National Park

Yet ANOTHER small (5" x 7"/12.7cm x 17.8cm) painting of Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA.

I stretched reality just a little -- normally, Joshua trees and the yellow-flowered goldenbush don't bloom at the same time. But that's not to say it couldn't happen! 

Enjoy!!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Hula and the Desert

 What a combination -- paintings of Hawaii (with hula dancers) and the desert in Joshua Tree National Park!! Well -- somebody's gotta do it! 😃

I wish I was better at painting hooman beans than I am, but I guess I just need to paint them more often. But so far, this is what I'm able to do. Enjoy!!

                                    Moonlight Hula         11" x 14" / 27.0cm x 35.9cm

                                  Untitled                            5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm

The Last (for Now) Mini Painting of the Desert

 OK -- just one more small (5" x 7" / 13cm x 18cm) painting of Joshua Tree National Park. Now I want to see how the public/tourists like 'em before I do more.

For now, I'm working on a painting of Hawai'i and hula dancers -- something just for me. It's unlikely I'll offer the original for sale, but maybe I'll make it available for prints on Fine Art America.

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

ANOTHER Small Desert Painting

 Yet another small painting of the desert (specifically, Joshua Tree National Park in California, USA). I want to see if I can squeak out one more painting with the tourists in mind (to be sold locally), but for now, this is the latest. Enjoy!!

Dawn II

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or SouthwestSpaces.com

A Coupla More Small Desert Paintings

 A coupla more small (5" x 7" / 12.7cm x 17.8cm) paintings of Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA. Maybe three more to do, then I'll either place them somewhere where tourists might see 'em and get 'em as souvenirs, or I'll offer 'em at a boutique our church is having in mid-May. We'll jus' hafta see!

These will NOT appear on my website. They'll be sold with mini easels to set the pieces on, and I'd rather not have to deal with packaging up the easels and the paintings for shipping.

Enjoy!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

The Surreal and the Desert

 Good grief -- I just realized I didn't post at all during March!!

But now it's April, I survived April Fool's Day, and I'm moving forward -- finally!

I finished two paintings last month. One is a somewhat surreal piece which, as usual, I can never really explain. The other is a scene from Joshua Tree National Park and is definitely a miniature painting -- 7" x 5" / 17.8cm x 12.7cm. My plan is to make several (or many) paintings this size and make them available as tabletop pieces to the many tourists who visit the National Park. They'll be offered with mini easels, or the collectors can have them framed if they prefer.

Memories of the Dark                                                   11" x 14"/27.9cm x 35.6cm

Hi Desert in Bloom                        7" x 5"/17.8cm x 12.7cm

In the meantime, have a blessed Easter! Be on the lookout for more paintings!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

A Winter Painting and a Christmas Painting!

 A couple of paintings appropriate for the season!

Mojave Snow                   8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm

A Colorado Christmas    8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm

One shows the aftereffects of a rare snowstorm in the Mojave desert of Joshua Tree National Park; the other is a Christmas scene in a home somewhere in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. (The mountain outside the window and in the painting over the fireplace are the same mountain: Mt. Sneffels, my favorite Colorado Mountain to paint!)

I hope you enjoy these images and that you have a wonderful holiday season!

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

 

Desert Sunset -- on a Bunny??

"Desert Sunset on a Bunny." ON A BUNNY????

Well, yeah...if you've been following this blog for a while, you know I'm addicted to cute little bunnies, whether domesticated or wild. They (along with guinea piggies) have gotta be the cutest critters in God's creation!

So I often place desert cottontail bunny-rabbits in my desert scenes, watching the viewer before the viewer notices the bunny! I hope this new piece continues the tradition.

Desert Sunset on a Bunny            11" x 14" / 28cm x 35.6cm

This scene is in Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA.

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com or www.SouthwestSpaces.com

The Desert and a Desert Bird

Years ago, I was in Joshua Tree National Park on a cloudy day, and I was lucky (or blessed) enough to be in a spot where the clouds opened up just a little and shone a spotlight on a Joshua tree in front of a monzogranite formation. It didn't last long, but I was able to get a few pictures of it on black-and-white film before the spotlight disappeared.

Sadly, I don't know where that roll of film is today, although I know I still have it SOMEwhere! But between my memories and more recent photos I took to provide the details, I was able to reconstruct the scene as I saw it (except the sky was a more solid gray, not as dramatic-looking as I painted it. Size is 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.

The Sun and the Rain

I also finished a piece showing a handsome desert bird -- a Phainopepla (pronounced fane-oh-PEP-la). They look sort of like black cardinals, but they aren't cardinals at all.

On the left are the birds' favorite goodies -- desert mistletoe berries. Like the Christmastime mistletoe, the desert variety is somewhat parasitic, and birds that eat the berries (like our friends, the Phainopeplas) drop the seeds, typically after it passes through their digestive tracts, and the seeds are deposited on some unsuspecting, innocent plant to grow and begin the cycle anew.

But the birds have those neat crests on their heads, black feathers (females are gray) and red eyes. They're quite striking and are about 8" / 20cm long. The size of this painting is, like the above piece, 8" x 10" / 20cm x 25cm.

Phainopepla

Mark Junge

www.MarkJunge.com and www.SouthwestSpaces.com

Quenching the Land

Quenching the Land is a painting I made years ago -- I think before I even began this blog.

Quenching the Land                                       16" x 20" / 41cm x 51cm

It's no secret that deserts are hard-up for rain; thus, when it comes, it's such a blessing to the plants and animals that live there.

The scene features a grouping of monzogranite boulders in Joshua Tree National Park with its namesake Joshua trees and some yuccas in bloom. The painting is hanging in the Hi Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley, CA.

Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com
www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www/FineArtAmerica.com (for prints)
 

Diorama Doings

Work continues on the diorama I'm making for the Hi Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley, CA. Unfortunately, the process of trying to sell our house and buy a mobile home has greatly slowed me down, which is quite frustrating. But I work as best I can. It's hard, too when I'm airbrushing some vegetation -- I have to do it in the garage, and it's been around 100°F / 39C lately. That's when I find out how much I can sweat!!

The diorama isn't quite finished yet, but here's how it looks so far. The glass front is in place -- sorry about the reflections!

 

Plodding Along

Plodding along...that's been what I've been up to lately. Not in the same spirit as the tortoise and the hare, but I've felt an awful lot like a tortoise lately.

The Tortoise and the Hare

(The pictures are details I cropped and enlarged out of two different paintings. Sorry about the blurriness!)

The Wiffee and I are getting ready to sell our house and move into a mobile home. It's simply gotten too expensive here in the state of California to stay in our house any longer. Taxes, insurance premiums, fees as well as living expenses keep going up, and the income isn't increasing at the same rate.

So we've been working on packing, staging our house, stuff like that.

Meanwhile, I've still got a habitat diorama to finish for the local nature museum. It figures that I have to deal with both of these issues at the same time!!

Here's how the background painting for the diorama finished out:

Admittedly, the painting appears much more detailed when seen in person than it does in this small photo!

And as for paintings -- well, that's fallen by the wayside for now. Too busy, too tired, all that stuff -- I just can't seem to continue on a painting I began a month or so ago. Someday!

Hopefully, I'll finish the diorama next week and I'll post pictures of it here! Until then...

Mark Junge
www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com
www.FineArtAmerica.com (for prints)

Dioramas in Progress

Besides working on my fine art paintings, I've also been busy with a commission from the local Hi Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley, CA. I'm making two habitat dioramas showing some of the wildlife and overall look of our Mojave desert!

So far, I'm still painting the background image which I hope to finish within a few days. I have to say, this is the largest painting I've ever done (86" wide x 67" high / 2.2m W x 1.7m H). And I'm working on the painting on site -- not in the studio, where I would use an easel and all my paraphernalia laid out where I'm used to having it. Oh, well.

Here's how it looks so far -- a slightly modified scene from Joshua Tree National Park:

Daytime Diorama

From the title, you may guess there will also be a Nighttime Diorama as well. Once the background is finished (with more small rocks and additional plant species), the foreground will be the three-dimensional component with ground, rocks, taxidermy animals and some plants. I'm making the 3-D foreground, too, although I don't know yet if I'll be placing the critters where they belong, or if the museum staff will handle that.

Then, if I'm not too tired, I work in my studio on my paintings, too!

It'll be nice to have both dioramas finished and see what the response is. I hope they will add much to the museum and that the public will love 'em!

Mark Junge
www.MarkJunge.com
www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.FineArtAmerica.com (for prints)

Autumn in the Mojave

Autumn in the Mojave is my latest painting (although lately it has felt more like winter in the Mojave!)

Autumn in the Mojave           11" x 14" / 28cm x 36cm

The scene is based on a view in Joshua Tree National Park in southern California, USA. It's rare to see the desert like this even when it rains, but it certainly does happen. The landscape is brightened by autumn-blooming wildflowers -- the larger rabbitbrush and the smaller desert marigold in the immediate foreground.

The desert is an amazing place with many different moods, visible to those who spend lots of time here and are fortunate enough to catch the land during its fleeting moments of magic and mystery.

Mark Junge
www.SouthwestSpaces.com
www.MarkJunge.com
www.FineArtAmerica.com (for prints)